South Korean Delegation Visits Pyongyang to Meet with Kim Jong-un
|This is all laying the groundwork for when the Inter-Korean Summit will eventually happen:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hosted a welcome dinner for South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoys on Monday, Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.
“Chairman Kim Jong-un is currently hosting a dinner for the special envoys,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing.
It is the first time the reclusive North Korean leader has met South Korean officials. The dinner began at 6 p.m.
Kim’s meeting with the South Korean envoys apparently reflected his willingness to improve his country’s ties with the South.
Moon and his aides have repeatedly highlighted the importance of talks between the U.S. and North Korea for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and have also noted that the trip by Moon’s special envoys was partly aimed at arranging such dialogue.
“I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community,” Chung Eui-yong, Moon’s chief envoy and head of the presidential National Security Office, said shortly before his departure for Pyongyang. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but who is Chung Eui-yong? He is a career diplomat that from 2001-2004 during the liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations served as South Korea’s UN ambassador. He would then get elected as a legislator for the same party that President Moon is in. So obviously Choi and Moon and been around each other a long time and Choi is someone that Moon trusts to represent his interests with the North Koreans.
I bet Fatty paid for the dinner using their own money from the Olympics.